Neatline
Multi-faceted, map enhanced storytelling
Kevin Dyke
Spatial Data Analyst/Curator
John R Borchert Map Library
Neatline is a plugin for the Omeka platform. It facilitates the creation of exhibits with a spatial focus.
Omeka is a digital publishing platform.
Developed by the Ray Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (the same group that created Zotero), Omeka is free and open source, yet installing is (relatively) painless.
"Omeka falls at a crossroads of Web Content Management, Collections Management, and Archival Digital Collections Systems."
from About Omeka
A few examples of Omeka exhibits
http://brickhouse.lib.umn.edu/
http://publications.newberry.org/lincoln/
http://marthawashington.us/
As you can see, Omeka is used for multimedia digital collection exhibits.
Utilizes Dublin Core metadata standard, which has a field for spatial coverage.
Unfortunately, this field is free text (which oftentimes means chaos). Using extended Dublin Core can help this, but...
When working with items where you want to emphasize their spatial context, Neatline is the way to go.
What Neatline is all about
Add a spatial context to archival documents
Strong integration of temporality
http://hotchkiss.neatline.org/neatline-exhibits/show/battle-of-chancellorsville/fullscreen
Highly customizable
http://neatline.dclure.org/neatline/show/gemini-over-baja-california
Neatline has been used in many different ways. Its free, open source nature makes this possible.
http://marathon.neu.edu/neatline/show/one-fund-poster
Not a walled garden
Neatline exhibits can be embedded within other Omeka exhibits, or nearly anywhere else using an iframe, such as Scalar.
Neatline's ease of use, extensibility, and openness make it worth checking out.
Contact me with any questions or if you want to give it a shot!